


Unchained Reaction

by SwingGirlAtHeart



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel Drives the Impala (Supernatural), Grief/Mourning, Human Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Post-Episode: s15e20 Carry On, The Impala (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29732769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwingGirlAtHeart/pseuds/SwingGirlAtHeart
Summary: Piercing the Veil is difficult.  It took Bobby ages to figure it out.  It took Kevin even longer.A spark of an idea ignites in the back of Cas’s head.  When Bobby had finally made it through to this side of the Veil, he’d done it by getting angry.Cas is going to have to piss Dean off.The idea almost makes him laugh, and he slides clumsily over into the driver’s seat, taking the car keys from where they’re stashed under the sun flap.  “Okay, Baby,” he says to the dashboard as he sticks the key in the ignition.  “Let’s go for a drive.”
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 31





	Unchained Reaction

**Author's Note:**

> This is somewhat tied in to my longer (and happier) fic, [Hell Or High Water](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27538978/chapters/67350193), but it's not necessary to read that in order to understand this.
> 
> Trigger warning for self-destructive behavior and very brief suicidal ideation.

Somehow, even though they’ve salted and burned his body, Cas still expects Dean to appear as a ghost. Surely Dean has enough unfinished business in this life to tether him here even without his bones. Every night Cas waits, staring into the dark until it swims, willing Dean’s shape into formation at the foot of his bed. Every night, Dean doesn’t show.

Cas is angry. He’s furious. After the first few weeks of numb, barely-functioning denial, Cas settled comfortably into the second stage of grief and got stuck. He’s not tried to bargain. He’s too angry to be depressed. And he sure as hell isn’t accepting anything.

He thought being human was a blessing. The Empty destroyed his grace and, disgusted with him, spit him out one final time. It was supposed to be a blessing. If he’d come back with his grace still intact and Dean had died anyways, it wouldn’t even have been half as bad as this, because as an angel Cas would still be able to reach him. As a human, he can’t wander into Dean’s heaven. He can’t pray in any way that Dean would hear him. Cas is completely alone.

No, he’s not alone, and he chides himself for thinking it every time the idea crops up, but it still burrows into his brain and makes a nest there.

Sam is still here, Cas tries to remind himself. And Eileen. And Jody, Donna, Bobby… All the people that matter to Cas are still here, and Dean is the sole exception.

Well. Not exactly. Jack is gone too.

He spouted some bull about being within every person and raindrop and tree and beam of sunlight and then bailed. Cas hadn’t been angry about Jack leaving until he’d found Dean in the barn with rebar through his chest and Jack just… didn’t come back. Cas tries to see Jack in the rain and the rocks and the sun, and maybe if he was still an angel he might be able to, but it all just looks empty to him now.

Cas knows that he’s been short with Sam and Eileen too, he does, but sometimes he can’t help it. Asking whether he’s okay is a stupid question; he can’t always stop himself from snapping back. It occurs to him a few times that he should apologize, but doesn’t know what good it will do if he just does the same thing again. Instead, his solution is to start avoiding them.

It doesn’t help, not really, but at least Cas doesn’t have to deal as often with their looks of concern, silently exchanged when they think he can’t see them. And he doesn’t have angel hearing any longer, but his hearing is still better than most people’s. So when Sam says _he’ll be okay, he’s working through it_ to Eileen in the other room, the words follow Cas down the corridor like some kind of bat, clawing at his shoulders, flapping at his head, gnawing at his neck.

It’s such _bullshit_. And Sam’s only saying it to make himself feel better.

So Cas is pissed off. He’s pissed at Sam. He’s pissed at Jack. He’s pissed at himself for acting like this and not being able to keep his anger to himself, where the only person it hurts is him. And he’s pissed at Dean for being dead.

Because when has death _ever_ stopped a Winchester before? Dean waits until _now_ , until Cas is human, to let death keep him? _Really?_

God _damn_ it.

Cas is lying in bed nearly a month and a half after Dean’s funeral, tossing and turning and unable to sleep, when it finally occurs to him. He sits bolt upright with a gasp. “I’m an idiot,” he announces to the empty room.

Of _course_ he’s an idiot. Dean’s body was burned. So the only way he could stay is by attaching himself to an object. And the only object to which Dean would attach himself – could _ever_ attach himself – isn’t going to fit in Castiel’s bedroom.

Cas shoves the blankets aside and stands, not bothering to put on shoes or a robe as he leaves his room. He walks barefoot down the hall in only the t-shirt and boxers he wore to bed, and despite the chill in the air he’s not cold. It’s nearly one in the morning and Sam and Eileen are fast asleep, so Cas doesn’t worry about accidentally running into them as he ducks through the library and climbs the steps to the garage.

The lights on the garage ceiling flicker to life, blinding in comparison to the soft lamps inside the bunker. Cas swallows, pausing on the top step with his hand on the rail. The Impala sits in her usual parking spot, still gleaming through the thin layer of dust. Nobody’s driven her since they brought Dean’s corpse home from Ohio. Eileen and Sam have been driving the Valiant exclusively, and Cas, on the rare occasions he’s left the bunker, has been using his old beater of a truck with its squealing fan belt and the air conditioning that coughs out sawdust whenever he turns it on. He likes the truck fine, but mostly he can still hear Dean’s voice in the back of his head: _Nobody drives Baby but me_. Driving her without Dean present just feels wrong.

But with nobody left to drive her, leaving her untouched seems almost cruel. Cas is fairly certain he’s imagining it, but he thinks she perks up when he comes in, sitting straighter on her wheels.

He lets out a slow breath and walks over to her, suddenly shivering. Logically, he knows the garage is always colder than the bunker, but his heart skips with hope – he exhales and tries to see his breath.

Letting his fingers run up the rib of her hood from the headlight to the side mirror, Cas pulls the door open and sits in the passenger seat. The hinge creaks as he shuts the door, a grating noise so familiar to him that it sounds like _home_ , and yet it’s obscenely loud in the silence of the garage. Cas sits still with his heart thudding away in his chest and his ears ringing.

He’s not sure how long he sits there in the quiet. Dean doesn’t appear.

“Dean?” Cas ventures, his voice cracking and hushed.

Nothing happens.

Still, Cas can practically see Dean manifesting, and over and over he pictures Dean winking into existence. Standing in front of the Impala’s hood. Hovering in the back seat. Hand on the wheel and grinning at Cas like nothing’s changed.

_How ‘bout we go for a drive?_

Maybe Dean’s not been gone long enough to know how to pierce through the Veil. They saw the same thing happen with Bobby years ago; it’s not unheard of. Maybe Dean is right there, just out of reach, just out of sight. Maybe he’s screaming to be heard.

“Dean,” Cas says again, hoping it’ll motivate Dean enough to send a sign – something, _anything_. Hoping a wrench will fly off the tool shelf by the stairs, or that Dorothy Baum’s motorcycle will tip over, or that the Impala’s engine will spontaneously start.

Nothing.

That’s okay, though. Piercing the Veil is difficult. It took Bobby ages to figure it out. It took Kevin even longer.

A spark of an idea ignites in the back of Cas’s head. When Bobby had finally made it through to this side of the Veil, he’d done it by getting angry.

Cas is going to have to piss Dean off.

The idea almost makes him laugh, and he slides clumsily over into the driver’s seat, taking the car keys from where they’re stashed under the sun flap. “Okay, Baby,” he says to the dashboard as he sticks the key in the ignition. “Let’s go for a drive.”

She shudders underneath him, her engine roaring like she’s shouting for joy. Cas’s bare feet work the pedals – clutch in, shift to first, clutch out, accelerate – and he guides her out of the garage, speeding up as they drive up the ramp through the tunnel. They hit the road outside faster than is really safe – Dean would _never_ take the corner so carelessly – and her nose dips down and nearly hits the pavement as she bounces.

Cas presses the gas and shifts to second gear, then third. The road leading away from the bunker and toward downtown Lebanon is pockmarked by cracks and potholes; he hits all of them, the Impala’s frame jolting painfully with every one. She jars his teeth, as if to say _take it easy, asshole!_ He thinks her gas pedal might have cut the bare sole of his foot, but it doesn’t bother him enough to stop.

He hurtles through Lebanon with no regard for the speed limit. It’s already past two o’clock, and Lebanon is a laughably small town; there’s nobody on the roads besides Cas. The rumble of the Impala’s engine echoes off the buildings lining the main street, rattling the dark windows of storefronts as she passes.

This is the closest Cas has gotten to flying since before the Fall, and a savage grin pulls at the corners of his mouth.

As the Lebanon town center disappears into the dust cloud behind them, Cas shifts to fourth gear.

Cornfields whip past, stalks bending and bowing in the Impala’s wake. A flash of a small pair of eyes in the headlights, and an animal crossing the road darts out of the way before the Impala can crush it under the wheel.

Cas grits his teeth, knuckles white around the steering wheel. This isn’t enough.

He leans to the right, and the Impala’s wheels dip onto the gritty shoulder. She skids and fishtails, the corner of her trunk clipping the cornstalks. Gravel peppers her belly like gunshots. Cas swings her back onto the road before she can completely spin out.

He can almost hear Dean shouting at him from the passenger seat. _Jesus, Cas, fucking STOP! You’re gonna hurt her! You’re gonna hurt YOU!_

But the passenger seat is still empty, so Cas won’t back down. Not yet.

“Come on, Dean,” Cas dares him as another pair of headlights appears in the distance. “Get mad.”

He shifts to fifth, letting the Impala’s wheels drift over the yellow line.

The Impala trembles around him, shaking as the air splits around her. The pavement screams below – or maybe that’s the wail of the oncoming car’s horn.

White light spills into the Impala’s cabin as the headlights draw closer, then flash once, twice, three times in a frantic warning. More honking.

Cas doesn’t slow down. “Come on, Dean,” he snarls under his breath. Protecting the Impala from a head-on collision should be more than enough to shove Dean to this side of the Veil.

A pair of hands appears from Cas’s right, and they seize the steering wheel and yank the Impala back across the yellow line.

Triumph surges in Cas’s ribs, white-hot and fierce, like he’s suddenly sprouted wings again. A smile bursts out of him as he slams on the brakes, the Impala’s tires squealing as the other car streaks past with a final blare of its horn.

“What the hell are you _doing_?!”

Cas’s heart lurches in his chest, the smile vanishing as quickly as it appeared. Something shatters within his core.

Jack is staring at him wide-eyed from the passenger seat, anger and fear and anguish rippling over his face in equal measure.

“Jack,” Cas says, and his voice breaks.

“What is _wrong_ with you?!”

Reality slams into Castiel with all the force of an asteroid striking a planet.

He’s gone crazy, he thinks. He’s recklessly driving his dead boyfriend’s car, trying to jolt a ghost to appear among the living, and he’s wearing nothing but a t-shirt and boxers. What the hell _is_ wrong with him?!

Jack leans over and twists the key in the ignition. The engine stops, the headlights switch off, and the Impala plunges into resonating darkness, sitting on the side of the road bracketed by nothing but corn.

“So you only show up when I’m about to kill myself?” Cas can’t stop himself from muttering, and the words are bitter on his tongue.

Jack glares at him. “That’s not what you were doing, and you know it.”

Cas doesn’t bother arguing. What’s the use in arguing with God, after all? “Well, you bailing was a real page out of Chuck’s book,” he says instead, nails digging into his palms. “I’m disappointed in you.” He sounds like an animal. He sounds hurt. He sounds like Dean.

Jack presses his mouth into a thin line. “Does this seem like bailing to you?”

“It seems like you’re picking and choosing who to save.”

“I told you,” Jack says, softening. “I’m hands-off. I won’t interfere.”

Cas snorts derisively. “Well, this is definitely hands-off,” he snaps.

“This is my last visit, Castiel.”

Jack says it evenly and without hesitation, and it feels like a punch to the throat. Cas shakes his head and glowers out the window.

“Why can’t you bring him back?”

Jack lets out a sigh, his hands resting in his lap. “Cas, I… I don’t plan anyone’s fate. Really, I don’t. But once they reach it, there’s nothing I can do.”

“You mean there’s nothing you _will_ do.”

Jack doesn’t contest the point, and somehow that hurts worse than anything else he might have said. “Bringing people back, messing with the natural order, making exceptions just because we love someone – that’s exactly how we got into trouble. Again and again and again. And every time it was worse than the time before. I’m not going to subject the world to that.”

It’s that statement that makes the tears finally spill, and Cas is _horrified_. “How could bringing Dean back be _anything_ but good for this world?”

“It’s my job to see the larger picture,” is all Jack says, which explains absolutely nothing.

“Well, I don’t see it.”

“I know.” A small, pained smile crosses Jack’s face. “You’re human.”

Cas swipes a palm over his face. His hands are shaking.

“He’s not here, Cas,” Jack says, as gently as is possible for a thing like him. He pulls his knees up, looking incongruously like a child again. “He’s in Heaven.”

Cas doesn’t remember reaching for the steering wheel, but he’s gripping it tighter than he’s ever gripped anything in his life. He can’t meet Jack’s eye.

“What’s to stop me from sending myself to Heaven?” Cas spits. He has no idea if it’s a threat, a promise, a wish, a plea… It would be easy, too. The bunker is home to any number of weapons; Cas is never more than an arm’s length away from something that can kill him.

Sorrow clouds Jack’s features, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Nothing,” he says. “I won’t stop you, if that’s your decision. But I don’t think it’s the right one.”

A breath falls from Cas’s lungs with sharp edges, hard and broken. “I just… I don’t _understand_. What was the purpose? What was the point of all this, if this was the result?”

“Castiel. You _will_ see Dean again, I promise. But your life isn’t pointless without him. And destroying Dean’s things won’t bring him back.”

Cas shakes his head again, tears dripping from his chin. “That’s easy for you to say, you’re the only thing that _could_ bring him back.”

Jack is quiet, his brow knitted in worry. When he speaks again, his voice cracks. He sounds like a little boy. He sounds like their son. “It hurts to see you like this.”

“Then _fix_ it!”

Jack purses his mouth for a moment, then turns and opens his door, stepping out of the car. “Come here,” he says.

Cas clenches his jaw, but follows suit. The gravel bites into his bare feet, and he shivers in the breeze, suddenly self-conscious of what he’s wearing. He hopes there’ll be no other cars driving by.

Jack leans on the Impala’s hood, and Cas does the same beside him. It’s a clear night, and this far from any big city lights, the sky is awash with stars. There’s no moon, but the heavens are anything but dark. The breeze whistles softly through the cornfields, the stalks shaking in their regiments.

“The universe is big, Castiel,” Jack says, gazing upward. “Bigger than any human can understand, or any angel for that matter. And it’s getting bigger every day. There’s so _much_ here, even just on this one planet.”

“I don’t want to hear some trite speech about how there’s beauty everywhere,” Cas interrupts him, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Okay.” If Jack is offended by Cas’s remark, he doesn’t let on. “All I’m saying is that there _is_ a larger picture, even if you can’t see it, even if it’s not planned out by me or Chuck or anything else. You have lived for millions of years, and now you’re human. In the grand scope of things, do you really think a human life is such a long time to wait?”

Cas swallows. He feels cold in the very marrow of his bones.

“And I don’t want to make you feel any worse, but how do you think Dean would react if you destroyed the Impala? Or if you destroyed yourself? How do you think Sam and Eileen would react?”

Great. A side helping of guilt, too.

Jack watches the sky for a few minutes, letting Castiel think his thoughts, then stands upright again. “Come on, Cas,” he says. “Let’s get you home. I’ll drive you.”

“What, so I don’t try to crash again?”

Jack only quirks an eyebrow at him and walks around to the driver’s side.

The drive back to the bunker is safe and quiet and well below the speed limit. Cas’s teeth begin to chatter – he really should have worn proper clothes – and he watches the empty town slide past in the dark. He thinks he feels the Impala sigh in relief under a gentler hand on her steering wheel. Jack avoids all the potholes and bumps on the road leading to the bunker.

Jack guides the Impala down the tunnel to the bunker garage and parks skillfully – Dean taught him well, it occurs to Cas, and he suddenly feels like crying again.

“What now?” he asks as Jack cuts the engine.

Jack tucks the car keys back under the sun flap. “Not for me to say,” he replies.

“Is this really your last visit?”

Jack nods, a shadow of grief flitting over his face. “I’ll still check in on you, and the others,” he promises. “But you won’t see me.”

Cas doesn’t understand that either, but knows that if he protests, Jack will only reiterate his hands-off policy. He gets out of the car.

It feels odd to be back in the garage, though Cas can’t quite put his finger on why. Everything feels suddenly more solid than it did when he’d left.

The driver’s door creaks as Jack closes it, circling around the Impala’s front with a comforting pat to her hood. “It’s time for me to go,” he says.

As angry as Cas is, Jack is still his son, and he pulls him into a fierce hug.

“I love you,” Jack says into Cas’s shoulder.

“I love you too.”

And then he’s gone, and Cas is holding nothing but air.

Cas breathes out a great sigh, a painful ache blooming in his chest. He doesn’t know if Jack’s appearance made things better or worse. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Jack, not again. He’s still not ready to say goodbye to Dean.

He looks at the Impala, and she almost seems like she’s looking right back at him, saying _what now, genius?_

His fingers ghost over her shell. “I’m sorry,” he whispers to her.

He does the only thing that feels right, then. He strides into the bunker, to his bedroom, grabs a pillow and blanket from his bed, and marches all the way back to the garage.

In the morning, Cas is startled awake by a sharp rap on the Impala’s roof. He squints blearily at the offender, his knees creaking from being bent for hours.

Sam is leaning through the passenger window, staring at Cas with what can only be described as extreme concern. “Cas,” he says, taking in the sight of Cas’s blanket and pillow and the marks of the leather upholstery creased into his cheek. “What… are you doing?”

Cas clears his throat. His mouth is dry and he needs to brush his teeth.

“Nothing, I…” He sits up, rubbing gunk from his eyes. He’s sure he looks awful. “What time is it?”

“Almost ten. Cas… have you been sleeping out here?”

Cas pushes the blanket from his shoulders, scratching at the stubble on his chin. He needs a shave too. “No. Just last night.”

Sam’s quiet for a minute, digesting this information. “What’s going on, Cas?”

Cas tugs on his ear, his neck flushing. It’s embarrassing now, in the light of day. “I just, um. I thought maybe if Dean was still here, if he was tethered to something, it’d be the Impala.”

Sam laughs lightly. “Yeah, it would.” He pauses, looking around the car like Dean might be lying in the back seat. “No luck, then?”

“No.”

Sam nods, unsurprised. “I know you miss him, I do,” he says. His words are gentle and kind and make Cas feel like a child. “But is that really something you’d want for Dean? Just being stuck here, slowly going crazy? You know as well as I do how ghosts end up after enough time.”

Cas exhales slowly. “Yeah. I know.”

Sam gives him a sympathetic smile and jerks his head in the direction of the bunker door. “How about you come inside, and we can get started on some breakfast?”

“Eileen’s not cooking?” Cas asks, because for the first few weeks after Dean’s death Eileen had taken over the kitchen while Sam and Cas were both in no shape to be feeding themselves.

Sam makes a face. “Do you really want her to?”

Cas laughs, and for the first time in ages, it’s genuine. His own cooking skills leave a lot to be desired, but Eileen is _far_ worse.

Sam smiles, relieved at Cas’s response, and opens the door for him. “Come on, Cas,” he says. “Come be with your family.”

And Cas does, following Sam from the garage, feeling for the first time like just _maybe_ things will get better.

Everything has an edge. The world itself, in all its vastness, still has a limit. Only so much it can hold. And just because the edge of the universe hasn’t been found yet, doesn’t mean there isn’t one. So too will there be an edge to his grief, a limit to how much he can take. Whether Cas will ever find that boundary where his grief ends, spinning away from him faster than he can catch up, he doesn’t know.

But for now, he knows the world will keep spinning along with everything in it, and he has plenty to live for.


End file.
